Monday, February 25, 2013

First World Luxuries

Chef, food critic and television personality Anthony Bourdain
is a devilishly intelligent guy.

Last year on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” Maher asked
Bourdain, “If you had to choose between average sex and a great meal, which
would you choose?” With precision comedic timing, Bourdain winked, “Depends on
who’s doin’ the cookin’ and who’s doin’ the fuckin’.”

For all it’s locker room charm, that quote wasn’t as thought
provoking as another Bourdain quote that my son, Cal recently shared with me.
On Bourdain’s Travel Channel show, “No Reservations,” he was in a third-world
country eating meat from an exotic local animal, and when asked about
vegetarians back in America, he quipped, “Vegetarianism is a first-world
luxury.”

I love a confrontational quote that begs soulful
self-examination. And it was delivered with a layer of indictment that’s hard
to ignore, as if luxuries are to be apologized for.

I shared the quote (about vegetarians) with a friend who is not
only a chef and a vegetarian, but also a fan of Bourdain. Unfortunately, this
friend doesn’t really like to be provoked with self-examination. Her momentary silence
and tightened body language revealed she was taken aback (and from my experience,
vegetarians are prone to being taken aback – that’s how they became
vegetarians!), so I took pity and offered a sympathetic comeback: “Quality
education is a first world luxury. Sanitary drinking water, sewer systems, a
criminal justice system, air traffic control systems and national elections, to
randomly name just a few, are all first-world luxuries.” She was soothed and
echoed my comments with a sorta, “Yeah, to what you just said.”

But to focus on that alone ignores the complexity of
Bourdain’s observation. Those living in the relative ease of the first world
have the safety, comfort, and plenty to choose beyond today’s dire necessities.
We can say, “Oh, I won’t eat that, because I’ve decided it’s not ethical
treatment of animals,” or “it’s not healthy.” But people in the 3rd
world often have to eat what they have to eat. They may never get a chance at self-actualizing
such decisions because they have more pressing worries: hunger, safety, and
weather extremes.

But does that mean we have to apologize or feel guilty
because we can choose to eat what we want to eat? I don’t dress or house my
family like people in the 3rd world (if you ignore my son, Jack, who
chooses to dress that way). As much as I wish the world’s poor had more, I’m
not sorry for my circumstances. I’m grateful.

I think Bourdain’s quote was a bit of a cheap shot. And
Bourdain does it a lot. He often compares vegetarians to picky eaters who drag
everybody else down when traveling and dining with their fussy sensibilities.
But when I think of first-world luxuries, I do think of people who have the
luxury to fear and disdain that which others less fortunate would kill for.

For instance I know a number of people who refuse to
vaccinate their children, convinced that it’s dangerous. The staggering swath
of medical history and worldwide child mortality data you have to ignore to
become a vaccination-phobe speaks to the isolation of the first-world
experience.

Like President Franklin Roosevelt, my aunt Beverly suffered
from polio. She spent part of her childhood in an iron lung. You know how modern-day
people who refuse to vaccinate their children get away without vaccinating them
against polio? Because the rest of us do! Providing a safe cultural pool for
their kids to swim in.

Look at countries without widespread vaccinations and you
find countries with high infant mortality and a level of childhood misery that
is Biblical in its gushing heartache. But in the first world, you can live like
all that never happens . . . or isn’t even true. Instead, you take your
relative safety from disease for granted and obsess over side issues.

The vaccination-phobes remind me of people I’ve met who are
afraid to fly. They talk forever about how airplanes can fall from the sky, but
can’t seem to focus when you share travel data that proves hands-down that it’s
more dangerous to drive than to fly. They instead tell you stories about
airline mechanics who let dangerous planes fly or pilots who drink before they
go to work. Share yet more unmistakable data again and they find another
obscure objection. They’re focused on the emotional, a place where the rational
has no power.

Only in the first world, where there is no longer any polio
(thanks to vaccinations) can you get hyper-focused on the minute percentage of
kids proven to have a negative reaction to vaccinations. In the 3rd
world, people have to spend their time worrying about the far, far, far higher percentage
of children who get polio.

In the comfort of the first world: emotions, minus scientific
observations can equal reality. Call me a science nerd, but I like to do it the
other way around, adding up scientific observation and subtracting emotion.

And I have friends here in central Indiana who insist on commuting
in large 4-wheel drive SUVs, “because they’re safer.” We live in just about the
flattest place in the world, in a county with not a single gravel road, with
some of the safest, best designed highways in the world, but they feel unsafe
without all that metal and those gear ratios on their side. They need an urban
assault vehicle or they just won’t feel right.

First world luxury indeed! Think India or Cambodia and a
scooter with an entire family perched atop it.

Several years ago I went to a vegetarian grilling class with
a group of friends. The instructor began by explaining that humans were never
meant to be vegetarians, describing in detail the shape of our teeth and what
they were made to do – the front teeth made to tear meat apart and the back
teeth made to grind it up so we can swallow it. He went on to explain our high
protein needs, from the vital part it plays in childhood brain development to ongoing
adult needs for protein – something harder get if you don’t live in a first
world country. The one vegetarian in our group was, well, taken aback. She
didn’t like having her belief’s challenged.

But truth is, I had some sympathy for her. If we’re to look
only at science and human history, it’s hard to argue that being peaceful
rather than warlike is what we were “meant to be.” And anthropologists tell us
time and again that it is not in human nature to be monogamous. But that
doesn’t stop us from trying to be peaceful and faithful, nor is human history a
reason to dismiss or condescend to people who strive for those ideals.

Don’t we all strive against our natural tendencies to
greater or lesser degrees?

What Bourdain was really nibbling at was Maslow’s Need
Hierarchy, which we all remember from any psychology class we ever took. People
at the bottom of the hierarchy are striving for food, shelter, and safety. Once
you have that, you move up the hierarchy and start expecting more, and better.
Once you get that you start searching for self-actualization – seeking purpose
and meaning in what you do. There is a natural tendency, when we’re at the top
of the hierarchy and embarrassed at all the time we spend gazing into our
belly-buttons, to think the people scrapping at the bottom are more worthy than
us, “more real,” because their needs are more immediate and less petty.

I actually believe that’s true. But I also bet those at the
bottom, those in the 3rd world would trade with us in a heartbeat if
given the option. It’s good to be reminded that our lives of comfort can make
our concerns a little petty. But it’s also good to have the comforts.

So go on vegetarians - disdain meat. Eat your veggies and
your grains. I’ll eat those too, and your share of the meat, and won’t feel bad
about you or myself no matter what Anthony Bourdain says.

It’s a little like sex vs. the well-cooked meal Bill Maher
asked about. You really shouldn’t have to choose between the two. Take them
both, recognize that you’re lucky, but don’t apologize.

2 comments:

Great point there Kurt. We covered Maslow's Hierarchy at college recently. Since coming across the "First World Problems" trend online, it makes me realise that a lot of the things I bitch about are things I have the LUXURY to bitch about. But guilt isn't the answer, as you say. A healthy dose of perspective instead can work wonders.

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About Me

The Contrarian's work has appeared in the Noblesville Daily Ledger, The Noblesville Times, NUVO Newsweekly, The Indianapolis Eye (web-based), The Noblesville Current, and at www.dailyyonder.com. He is the co-founder of the literary journal, the Polk Street Review, where his stories also appear. His novel, Stardust was published in 2002 and has just been republished again under the title "Noblesville," by River's Edge Media. His 2nd novel, The Salvage Man, was released August of 2015 by River's Edge. Kurt is a former school teacher and a Realtor.